Fibble, D.D. Part 8

I had never slept on a billiard table before. Willingly, I shall never do so again. Moreover, I was not permitted to have an entire billiard table to myself. I was compelled to share it with two other persons, both total strangers to me.

I must qualify that last a.s.sertion; for one of my bedfellows--or table-fellows, to employ exact language--lost no time in informing me regarding himself and his history. Despite the hardness of my improvised couch, I fain would have relinquished myself to Nature's sweet restorer--that is, slumber--for I was greatly awearied by the exertions of the day; but this gentleman, who was of enormous physical proportions, evinced so strong an inclination to have converse with me that I felt it the part of discretion, and of politeness as well, to give ear.

Speaking in a quaint and at times almost incomprehensible vernacular, he began by telling me as we reclined side by side beneath the same coverlid that he was no other than Zeno the Great. He then paused, as though to allow me time in which to recover from any astonishment I might feel. In sooth, I had never before heard of any person wearing so singular an appellation; but, realising instinctively that some response from me was expected, I murmured, "Ah, indeed! How very interesting!"

and begged him to proceed.

This he straightway did, paying no heed to the muttered complaints of our third companion, who reclined on the other side from me, I being in the middle. Since our fortunes were thereafter to be so strangely intertwined, I deem it best to detail in effect the disclosures then and there made to me by this gentleman, Zeno the Great.

His name, it developed, was not Zeno, but Finnigan, the more sonorous cognomen having been adopted for professional purposes. He had begun life humbly, as a blacksmith's a.s.sistant in a hamlet in Michigan, later attaching himself to a travelling circus. Here his duties mainly consisted in lending a.s.sistance in the elevating and lowering of the tent. Possessing great bodily strength and activity, however, he had in spare time perfected himself in the art of lifting, balancing and juggling objects of enormous weight, such as steel bars, iron b.a.l.l.s, and so on, with the gratifying result that he presently became a duly qualified performer, appearing for a term of years before large and enthusiastic audiences, and everywhere with the most marked success imaginable; in fact, he was now without a peer in his chosen vocation, as he himself freely conceded. He expressed himself as being exceedingly sorry not to have with him a sc.r.a.pbook containing a great number of press clippings laudatory of his achievements, adding that he would have been glad to lend me the book in order that I might read its entire contents at my leisure.

At length his fame, having first spread the length and breadth of our own country, reached foreign sh.o.r.es. After spirited bidding on the part of practically all the leading Continental managers he accepted an engagement at a princely salary to perform before the crowned heads of Europe, and others, as the princ.i.p.al attraction of a vaudeville company contemplating a tour of Europe. I recall that he specifically mentioned crowned heads. Feeling that the importance of the event justified a lavishness in the matter of personal garb, he said that before sailing he had visited the establishment of a famous costumer located on the Bowery, in the city of New York, and there had purchased attire suitable to be worn on the occasion of his public appearances abroad.

This apparel, he admitted, had undergone some wear, as the property of a previous owner, being, in fact, what is known as second-handed; but, because of its effectiveness of design and the fortunate circ.u.mstance of its being a perfect fit, he had not hesitated to purchase it. I ask you, Mister President, to mark well this detail, for it, too, has a profoundly significant bearing on future events.

Continuing, my new acquaintance stated that he had reached France but a day or two before the mobilisation and, like myself, had been hurled unexpectedly into a very vortex of chaos and confusion. He had lost a collection of photographs of himself, and his treasured sc.r.a.pbook--losses that he regretted exceedingly; but he had clung fast to his stage attire and to his juggling appliances, bearing them away with him by hand from Paris. He was now endeavouring to make his way back to England, intending to return thence to America without loss of time.

This narration consumed, I presume, the greater part of two hours, I, meantime, endeavouring to conceal any signs of increasing drowsiness. He was, I think, nearing the conclusion of his tale when the porter of the hotel appeared before us in the semi-gloom in which the billiard room was shrouded. Observing that we were yet awake, he gave vent to an extended statement, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. with great volubility and many gesticulations of eyebrow, hand and shoulder. The French in which he declaimed was of so corrupted a form that one could not understand him; and, since one of my neighbours was now soundly asleep and the other knew no French, we were at a loss to get on until the porter had recourse to an improvised sign language.

Producing a watch he pointed to the Roman numeral VII on its face and then, emitting a hissing sound from between his front teeth, he imparted to his hands a rapid circular motion, as though imitating the stirring of some mixture. At once we agreed between our two selves that this strange demonstration had reference, firstly to the hour when breakfast would be served on the following morning, and, secondly, to the articles of drink and food which would be available for our consumption at that time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM ITS DEPTHS I EXTRACTED THE PARTING GIFTS BESTOWED UPON ME BY MY GREAT-AUNT PAULINA]

Accordingly I nodded, saying: "_Oui, oui; je comprends._" And at that, seemingly satisfied, the worthy fellow withdrew, all smiles. Shortly thereafter we drifted off to sleep and I knew no more until I was roused by the brilliant rays of the August sun shining in my face and rose to a sitting att.i.tude, to find that the third man had already departed, leaving to Zeno the Great and myself the complete occupancy of the billiard table.

As I straightened to my full stature, with my limbs aching and my whole corporeal frame much stiffened by enforced contact during a period of hours with the comparatively unyielding surface of the billiard table, I made another discovery, highly disconcerting in its nature. Ere retiring to rest I had placed my shoes side by side beneath the table. It was now evident that while I slept some person or persons unknown to me had removed them. I hypothesised this deduction from the fact that they were quite utterly gone. A thorough scrutiny of my surroundings, which I conducted with the aid of my late sleeping companion, merely served to confirm this belief, the search being bootless. I have no intention of making a pun here. Puns are to me vulgar, and hence odious. I mean bootless in the proper sense of the word.

Balancing myself on the marge or verge of the billiard table--for the tiled surface of the floor had imparted a sense of chill to my half-soled feet and already I was beginning to repress incipient sneezes--I called aloud, and yet again I called. There was no response.

A sense of the undignifiedness of my att.i.tude came to me. I opened my remaining portmanteau, which had served me as a pillow--and such a pillow! From its depths I extracted the parting gifts bestowed upon me by my Great-Aunt Paulina and adjusted them to my chilled extremities.

Ah, little had she recked, as her deft fingers wove the several skeins of wool into the finished fabric, that under such circ.u.mstances as these, in such a place as this, and almost within sound of war's dread alarums, I should now wear them!

I was reminded that I craved food and I mentioned the thought to Mr.

Finnigan--or, as I shall call him, Zeno the Great. It appeared that he, too, was experiencing a similar natural longing, for his manner instantly became exuberantly cordial. For all his ma.s.siveness of contour and boisterous manner of speech, I felt that this new-made friend of mine had a warm heart. He dealt me an unnecessarily violent but affectionate blow between the shoulders, and as I reeled from the shock, gasping for breath, he cried out in his uncouth but kindly way:

"Little one, that's a swell idea--let's you and me go to it!" Note--By _it_, he undoubtedly meant breakfast.

With these words he lifted his luggage consisting of a large black box securely bound with straps and padlocked as to the hasp, telling me at the same time that he doubted whether any human being in the world save himself could stir it from the floor; for, as he vouchsafed, it contained not only his costume but also a set of juggling devices of solid iron, weighing in the aggregate an incredible number of pounds. I have forgotten the exact figures, but my recollection is that he said upward of a thousand pounds net. As he shouldered this mighty burden he remarked to me over his shoulder:

"I guess I'm bad--eh?"

However, as I have just explained and now reiterate, I am convinced he was not bad at all, but good at bottom; so I contented myself by saying:

"No, no; quite the contrary, I am sure."

As we emerged from the billiard room into the small entrance hall or lobby that adjoined it, I was struck with the air of silence which prevailed. The proprietor was not visible; no other person was visible.

Once more I called out, saying: "h.e.l.lo, my good man! Where are you?" or words to that effect; but only echo answered. I fared to the dining room, but not a living soul was in sight there. Beset by a sudden dread suspicion I hastily ascended the stairs to the upper floor and sped through an empty corridor to the two rooms wherein my eight wards had been lodged. The doors of both chambers stood open; but the interiors, though showing signs of recent occupancy, were deserted. I even explored the closets--no one there, either! Conjecture was succeeded by alarm and alarm by outright distress.

Where had they gone? Where had everybody gone? Unbidden and unanswered, these questions leaped to my bewildered brain, firing it with horrible forebodings.

Sounds of loud and excited outcry came reverberatively to me from below.

With all possible speed I retraced my steps to the entrance hall. There I beheld the proprietor in close physical contact with Zeno the Great, striving with all his powers to restrain the infuriated latter from committing a bodily a.s.sault on the frightened porter, who apparently had just entered by the street door and was cowering in a corner in an att.i.tude of supplication, loudly appealing for mercy, while the landlord in broken English was all the time pleading with the giant to remain tranquil.

Into the midst of the struggle I interposed myself, and when a measure of calm had been re-established I learned the lamentable and stunning truth. Stupefied, dazed and, for the nonce, speechless, I stared from one to the other, unwilling to credit my own sense of hearing.

At seven of the clock a special train had steamed away for Calais, bearing the refugees. The proprietor and his minion had but just returned from the station, whence the train had departed a short half hour before. Aboard it were the Americans who had been stranded in Abbevilliers on the evening previous. My eight young lady seniors were aboard it, doubtlessly a.s.suming, in the haste and confusion of the start, that I had found lodgment in some other compartment than the one occupied by them.

All the recent guests of this hotel were aboard it--with two exceptions.

One was Zeno the Great; the other the author of this distressing narrative.

With one voice we demanded to know why we, too, had not been advised in advance. The proprietor excitedly declared that he had sent the porter to make the rounds of the house during the night and that the porter returning to him, reported that, either by word of mouth or by signs, he had duly informed all of the plans afoot for the ensuing morning.

"He tell me zat ze billiard-table gentlemans do not understand ze French," proclaimed the landlord; "and zat zen he make wit' 'is mouth and 'is hands ze representation of ze _chemin de fer_--what you call ze locomoteef; and zen you say to him: 'Yes, yes--all is well; we comprehend fully.'"

With a low, poignant moan I pressed my hands, palms inward, to my throbbing temples and staggered for support against the nearermost wall.

I saw it all now. When the porter had emitted those hissing sounds from between his teeth we very naturally interpreted them as an effort on his part to simulate the sound produced by steaming-hot breakfast coffee.

When, in a circular fashion, he rotated his hand we thought he meant scrambled eggs. Between wonder at the incredible stupidity of the porter and horror at the situation of my eight unprotected and defenceless young lady seniors, now separated from me by intervening and rapidly increasing miles, I was rent by conflicting emotions until reason tottered on her throne.

Anon I recovered myself, and the intellectual activity habitual to the trained mind succeeded the coma of shock. I asked this: "When will there be another train for the coast?" With many shrugs the landlord answered that conditions were unsettled--as we knew; schedules were disarranged.

There might be a train to-night, to-morrow, or the day after--who could say? Meantime he felt that it was his duty to warn us to prepare for a visit by a joint representation of the civic and military authorities.

Rumours of the presence of spies in the employ of the Germans filled the town. It was believed that one miscreant was even then in the place seeking an opportunity to destroy the public buildings and the railroad terminal with bombs or other devilish machines. Excitement was intense.

Aliens were to be put under surveillance and domiciliary search had been ordered. It was even possible that all strangers might be arrested on suspicion and detained for further investigation.

Arrested! Detained! His words sent a cold chill into the very marrow of my being. Innocent of all evil intent though I was, I now recalled that on the day before, while in mixed company, I had spoken openly--perhaps bitterly--of the temperamental shortcomings of the French. What if my language should be distorted, my motives misconstrued? In the present roused and frenzied state of a proverbially excitable race the most frightful mistakes were possible.

There was but one thing to do: I must wire our Secretary of State, apprising him of the exact situation in Abbevilliers with particular reference to my own plight, and strongly urging on him the advisability of instantly ordering a fleet of American battleships to the coast of France, there to make a demonstration in force. With me, to think has ever been to act. I begged the landlord for pen and ink and cable blanks and, sitting down at a convenient table, I began. However, I cannot ask that Mr. Bryan be called to account for his failure to respond to this particular recommendation from me, inasmuch as the cablegram was never despatched; in fact, it was never completed, owing to a succession of circ.u.mstances I shall next describe.

Because of an agitation that I ascribe to the intense earnestness now dominating me I encountered some slight difficulty in framing the message in intelligible language and a legible chirography. I had torn up the first half-completed draft and was engaged on the opening paragraph of the second when the clamour of a fresh altercation fell on my ear, causing me to glance up from my task. The porter, it appeared, had laid hands on Zeno the Great's black box, possibly with a view to shifting it from where it lay on the floor directly in the doorway; whereupon its owner became seized with a veritable berserk rage.

Uttering loud cries and denunciations he fell on the porter and wrested the box from his grasp; following which the porter fled into the street, being immediately lost from view in the distance.

Turning to me, Zeno the Great was in the midst of saying that, though bereft of his sc.r.a.pbook of clippings and his set of photographs, he hoped to be eternally consigned to perdition--his meaning if not his exact phraseology--if anybody got away with the even more precious belongings yet remaining to him, when nearing sounds of hurrying feet and many shrill voices from without caused him to break off.

In apprehension, more or less successfully concealed from casual scrutiny, I rose to my feet. At the same instant the porter precipitately re-entered, closely followed by six gendarmes, eight foot soldiers, a personage in a high hat, whom I afterward ascertained to be the mayor, and a mixed a.s.semblage of citizens of both s.e.xes and all ages, amounting in the aggregate to a mult.i.tude of not inconsiderable proportions. Agitating his arms with inconceivable activity and crying out words of unknown purport at the top of his lungs, the porter pointed accusingly at Zeno, at the locked box, at me!

For the moment I was left unmolested. With loud and infuriated cries the gendarmes threw themselves on the black box. The foot soldiers hurled themselves on Zeno the Great, precipitating him to the floor, and quite covering him up beneath a quivering and straining ma.s.s of human forms.

The mayor tripped over a stool and fell p.r.o.ne. The populace gave vent to shrill outcries. In short and in fine, I may affirm, without fear of successful contradiction, that chaos reigned supreme.

One felt that the time had come to a.s.sert one's sovereign position as an American citizen and, if need be, as a member of a family able to trace its genealogy in an unbroken line to the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at or near Plymouth Rock, Ma.s.sachusetts. I drew forth from my pocket the small translating manual, previously described as containing English and French sentences of similar purport arranged in parallel columns, and, holding it in one hand, I endeavoured to advance to the centre of the turmoil, with my free arm meantime uplifted in a gesture calling for silence and attention; but a variety of causes coincidentally transpired to impede seriously my efforts to be heard.

To begin with, the uproar was positively deafening in volume, and my voice is one which in moments of declamation is inclined to verge on the tenor. In addition to this, the complete freedom of my movements was considerably impaired by a burly whiskered creature, in a long blouse such as is worn in these parts by butchers and other tradespeople, who, coming on me from behind, fixed a firm grasp in the back of my garments at the same instant when one of his fellows possessed himself of my umbrella and my small portmanteau.

Finally, I could not locate in the book the exact phrases I meant to utter. Beneath my eyes, as the printed leaves fluttered back and forth, there flashed paragraphs dealing with food, with prices of various articles, with the state of the weather, with cab fares, with conjectures touching on the whereabouts of imaginary relatives, with questions and answers in regard to the arrival and departure of trains, but nothing at all concerning unfounded suspicions directed against private individuals; nothing at all concerning the inherent rights of strangers travelling abroad; nothing at all concerning the procedure presumed to obtain among civilised peoples as to the inviolate sacredness of one's personal property from sumptuary and violent search at the hands of unauthorised persons--in short, nothing at all that would have the slightest bearing on, or be of the slightest value in explaining, the present acute situation. Given a modic.u.m of leisure for painstaking search among the pages and a lessening of tensity in the state of the popular excitement, I should undoubtedly have succeeded in finding that which I sought; but such was destined not to be.

Of a sudden a chorus of exultant shrieks, louder than any of the cries that until then had arisen, caused all and sundry to face a spot near the door. The gendarmes had forced open the black box so highly prized by Zeno the Great and now bared its contents to the common gaze.

Mister President, think of the result on the minds of the mob already inflamed by stories of spies and infernal devices. The box contained six cannon b.a.l.l.s and a German captain's uniform!

Ah, sir, how many times since then, dreaming in my peaceful bed of the things that immediately ensued, have I wakened to find my extremities icy cold and my body bathed in an icy moisture! Yet, in my waking hours, whene'er I seek mentally to reconstruct those hideous scenes I marvel that I should preserve so confused, so inchoate a recollection of it all, though from the picture certain episodes stand out in all their original and terrifying vividness.

Again do I hear the maledictions of the frenzied populace; again do I behold their menacing faces, their threatening gestures. Again, with pitying and sympathetic eyes, do I see myself hurried through the streets, a breathless prisoner, hatless, coatless--for my coat came away in the hands of the whiskered wretch in the blouse--deprived through forcible confiscation of my translating manual, by means of which I might yet have made all clear to my accusers, and still wearing on my sorely trampled feet the parting gift of Great-Aunt Paulina. Again am I carried for arraignment before a mixed tribunal in a crowded room of some large building devoted in ordinary times, I presume, to civic purposes.